As part of completing a well, sand control is performed to prevent or reduce the amount of sand that is produced with hydrocarbons into a wellbore. Sand production can erode hardware, block tubular structures installed in a wellbore, create downhole cavities, and cause other problems. Sand control can be performed in both open holes (wellbores that are not lined with a casing or liner) and in cased or lined wellbores. One type of sand control technique that is used involves gravel packing, in which a slurry containing gravel is carried from the surface and deposited in an annulus between a sand-control screen and the wellbore.
However, conventional gravel-packing techniques have not been efficiently used in multi-zone arrangements (in which a wellbore is segmented into different zones with each zone having to be separately gravel-packed). Often, gravel packing equipment has to be moved between gravel packing operations with respect to different zones, which is time-consuming.